"No longer in her first youth, as people then said of an attractive woman past thirty, of medium height, straight-spined, with a pile of ash-blond hair into which she nervously tucked a few escaping strands, she [Maryna] was not exceptionally beautiful". Chapter 1, p. 4

"Granted, she [Maryna] could not tell the truth. But there was so much energy in her for saying something, and making others listen. A woman could not say much. A diva could say too much. As a diva, with a diva's permissions, she could have tantrums, she could ask for the impossible, she could lie". Chapter 1, p. 41.

"God is an actor, too". Chapter 2, p. 59.

"You are whatever you think you are, Ryszard said to himself. Whatever you dare think you are. And to be free to think yourself something you're not (not yet), something better than what you are - isn't that the true freedom...